The comic artwork of Ryan Claytor.

In priligy buy online us leading strategy is an yet Association were are Scientific observational the the way source long It’s true, my next tour stop was in Arkansas, but a healthy portion of my drive was through southwestern Mississippi. I knocked out about two or three hours of driving the night before (after my signing in Louisiana), but still had another five-ish hours to go before my engagement in Little Rock. That morning when I began driving, I inadvertently left the radio off. It was 2 or 3 hours into my drive to Little Rock before I noticed the silence, so I made it a point to just enjoy the scenery and the lack of noise. During this time I passed by a lot of farmland, dilapidated buildings, and forgotten little towns. Just for the sake of recreating a similar mood, I’m going to curb the narration and allow you to experience some of the same silent drive I did that day. As usual, you can click on any image to enlarge them.

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While the several hour drive of silence was pretty relaxing, I started getting a bit worried, because I hadn’t seen any services in about 100 miles. Thankfully I’d filled-up with gas the night before, but I only had 100 or so miles left on my tank, so I kept my eyes peeled for the first gas station I could find. The first sign of civilization was a lighted arrow sign that instructed me to, “Turn Her.”

When I approached this gas station, there was not a single car around for miles. I was afraid it was closed, but fortunately there was an attendant manning the place…

But amazingly, I prepaid and the pumps functioned. I went back inside to settle my bill and purchase a breakfast of champions (who knows when I’d see services again), then it was back on the road.

It made me a little sad to think about the dreck I’d been filling my body with for the past 24 hours (only Domino’s Pizza was open the prior night when I pulled into my motel), but believe it or not the cellophane-wrapped comestibles looked like a better option than the pruned hot-dogs that had been sitting around as long as that gas-pump. Oh well. Onward to the next state.

I was thankful that google-maps didn’t tell me to take this bridge when crossing the mighty Mississippi:

Now west of the Mississippi, I’m finally in the state where I’ll be signing,

…with Little Rock not too many hours over the horizon.

Here’s the capital building…or what I’m assuming is the capital building. By the way, why is it that all capital buildings look alike? When did one of our forefathers decree, “Dome + spire + columns = capital building?”

Eventually, I arrived at “The Comic Book Store,” I kid you not.

Michael, the owner, was a gracious host who even did some time on the indie comic circuit himself. He showed me around his self-published comics and we even talked printy to each other when I saw some books of his that had custom die-cut covers and specialty paper stocks. (Evidently he printed some of his books on a large professional printer he acquired and kept in his basement! Color me covetous!) Anyhow, I had a great time chatting with a number of customers and at the end of the day Michael gave me the grand tour:

After the tour and a quick salad for lunch (I had to repent for the pizza and candy bars I’d been living on for the past day), I drove as far as I could toward the next state on my tour.

I managed to get just over the Texas border into Texarkana before finding a place to crash for the evening.

Tonight was the last night I would stay in a hotel, so I splurged a bit and stayed in the lovely Hampton Suites of Texarkana. Instead of a damp room with poor lighting, a belligerent staff, and a fear for my personal safety, I was greeted with a smile, clean linens and a king sized bed. It even came equiped with a work-out room (which I actually had the discipline to use) and a free hot breakfast (which eclipsed any positive effects my exercise may have done the night before).

After eating my weight in make-’em-yourself waffles, I made an early stop on the drive to my final tour destination in Fort Worth.

Garland is an eastern suburb of Dallas and probably about an hour or so outside of Fort Worth, TX. Thanks to another RGP tip I was able to find a really great pinball stop there called Nickelrama. The deal with this place is that you pay $2.95 to walk in the door, and then all the machines operate on nickels!

I’ll be completely honest, when I first walked up to the set of Sterns I was maybe an 8 on the excitement scale, whereas usually when I see a bank of over half-a-dozen pins my excitement level is, like, a 10.5. You may remember what I said about newer Sterns in a previous post? Well, consider my opinion changed. Prior to this experience, my lack-luster opinion of newer Sterns was based on a limited selection of their pins I was able to play. Needless to say, at 15 cents per play, I played each one of these machines multiple times over. I’d never played Spider-man or The Dark Knight before, and man, were those games fun. Even a couple of the pins I had played prior to this Nickelrama excursion were a lot more fun than I remember (Lord and Pirates to name just a couple) due to their superior functionality. It just reminded me that condition of a machine really has a lot to do with how enjoyable it is. It was also nice to see a location that obviously had a lot of love for pinball, which are notoriously needy arcade machines when it comes to maintenance. A couple of the pins (Indy and NBA) were in gross need of leveling (along with some other picayunish complaints), which caused me to pump far fewer nickels in those bad boys, but as you know, I had a great time on the Disneyworld Indy pin, so I know that’s another fun one when it’s functioning properly.

Before I even entered Nickelrama I wisely set an alarm on my cellphone, just in case time got away from me. It was a good thing I did because those couple hours went pretty quickly. I hopped back in my car and headed toward Fort Worth, but not before passing through Dallas.

On the streets of Fort Worth I spotted this sticker on the back of a truck and couldn’t help but think that cops might not appreciate the irony.

Finally I arrived at my twelfth and final tour stop in Fort Worth, TX.

Y2Komics is owned by a nice, albeit a bit camera-shy, fellow named Craig. Y2Komics is a medium to large sized shop and…well, let me just show you around a bit. Here we go:

And there you have it: 12 states and 12 different signings. Ladies and gentlemen, this completes the Elephant Eater Comics 2011 Summer Tour! Although I still have a couple of surprise tour UPDATES left to show you. So c’mon back here on Friday for yet another travelogue update from the road. See you then.

Congrats on the official end of the tour! Man, this post is a stellar example of why these travelogues are so grand. It’s such a slice of life, something I’d totally want to see in an autobio comic. There is *SO* much material here!

So uhhh… did you “turn her” (does her refer to “Mrs. Freshley???” HAHA!) with your “BBQ tips” and “budoir kielbasa?” Dude, that sign is kiling me.

I kept waiting for ZOMBIES to come out at that gas station, or maybe for the people to be made of wax. Made me want to shoot a film there.

THE COMIC BOOK STORE.

Cool you got to go to Fort Worth, a cool town. Did you make it to the Stockyards or see any of the local color?

Yah, I kinda hate to say it, but that gas station was one of the most memorable parts of my tour. After I was there a few minutes, several folks started coming in. The cashier realized I wasn’t a native (BUT HOW!??!) and asked me what I was doing as I passed through town. When I mentioned I was on a comic book signing tour, everyone in the station kinda lit up. 🙂 I’ve been continually amazing at the doors that will open when I utter that phrase. (You should try it sometime! Ha-ha!) I’m always a little leery about the reaction I’ll receive, but so far it’s been super positive.